The mist hadn't rolled in before—not like this.
It came from the eastern ridge before dawn, thick and slow, hugging the crater floor like something dragging its fingers through the dust. Not the usual ash fog. This was heavier, cold enough to turn breath visible, curling low and unnatural beneath the warm stone air.
Riku was already up, sketching out the resource tallies by torchlight when Kael entered the hall. He didn't knock.
"Three hours late," Kael said flatly. "Unit Nine never checked in."
Riku looked up.
Sira, leaning near the forge with a binding rod in one hand, turned toward them. "Where?"
"South by southeast," Kael answered. "Second ring pass, near the melted basin."
That was too close to the edge of the dome. A known danger zone.
Riku stood, rolled up the hide scroll, and pulled his shortblade from the wall hook.
"I'll go."
Kael blinked. "You want to walk into that?"
"You said it yourself," Riku said. "Three hours."
He didn't wait for argument.
Sira came with him. The two of them crossed the camp silently, passing Tharn who was driving new stakes into the livestock pit. The drake pen had been holding, but they'd yet to trap anything.
The mist thickened near the dome's edge. Cold against their faces, unnatural in the heat. The moment they passed the shimmer line and stepped out of the protection zone, the air changed.
Still. Dense. Soundless.
Every step muffled. Every movement deliberate.
They followed the trail markers Kael had left—scratched stones, copper wire flags—until the path curved toward the basin. And there, in the black rock where the mist swirled in slow arcs, Riku saw them.
Boots.
Just the boots.
Empty.
One was upright. The other had fallen sideways, one strap cut. Not torn—burned. A clean crescent of blackened leather, curled in on itself like it had been touched by lightning.
Sira crouched slowly, ran a finger along the edge of the nearest burn.
"No heat residue," she muttered. "It wasn't fire."
"Then what was it?"
She didn't answer.
Riku scanned the surrounding mist. The stone here had deep gouges—claw marks, wide and evenly spaced. But there were no tracks. No blood. No bones.
Just silence.
They didn't stay long.
Back at the camp, Kael was waiting at the barrier line. When he saw Riku's expression, he didn't speak. Just nodded.
Tharn arrived a few minutes later, carrying one of the older spears. "Beasts?"
"No," Riku said. "Not sovereigns either."
"Then what?"
"Something else."
That was all he said.
He ordered the perimeter doubled and began drafting a second layer of trap alignments—deeper, closer to the dome interior, meant not for animals but for things that hunted. Not creatures that charged. But ones that watched. Waited.
That evening, while organizing salvage crates near the forge supply bin, Riku lifted the lid to one of the empty bolt boxes.
And paused.
There were now six full bundles of iron bolts inside.
Yesterday, there had been two.
He reached in, pulled one out. Each was wrapped in vine cord. Each had the same notch pattern—a slight chip on the fletch line from where Kael had improperly pressed the binding.
He turned one slowly in his hand.
[Ammo Folded – Iron Bolts | Original: 2 | Multiplier: x3 | Final: 6]
He closed the box. Quietly.
Then crossed to his notes and wrote down a single line.
#8 – Iron Bolts | Quantity Fold x3 | Final: 6
Triggered post-stockpile, no observed contact
Sira sharpened her blades in silence.
Kael sat by the map wall, adding a red circle to the southeast pass.
Tharn stood by the edge of the dome, watching the mist.
Riku stood for a long time with his back to the forge, hands behind him, eyes on the darkening horizon.
Something out there wasn't waiting for the Blood Moon.
It was already hunting.